"Challenging the logic of efficiency: Different and conflicting views on the model of Person-centered care"

In the global context of aging populations, health authorities have often presented the humanistic ideal of putting the Person again at the center of healthcare services as a solution for decreasing the costs within National Healthcare Systems (WHO 2006). This paper aims to explore the challenging to the validity of political-economic dogmas embedded in this view of the model of Person-centred care (Pcc). By analyzing informal discourses and semi-structured interviews with the providers of an eldercare service in Italy, I will argue that ʻnewʼ ethics of Pcc ambiguously intertwines with old-standing dominant approaches of quantifying and standardizing the provision of healthcare services (Lydahl 2017). The philosophy of Pcc highly values the building of long-lasting relationships and communication between providers, patients, and caregivers to sustain as long as possible ʻgood care at homeʼ, the cultural vision which dominates the discourses on aging (Lamb 2017). And yet providers believe that health authorities’ logic of efficiency constructs a model of Person and care needs that neglects their abilities and efforts in sustaining these relationships within an ideal of Pcc.